


The Banished Heart

by stellardarlings



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon compliant child abandonment, Cursed!Rey, F/M, Wizard!Kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29183685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellardarlings/pseuds/stellardarlings
Summary: On Rey of Niima’s nineteenth name day, Jakku gains a new wizard.Jakku is a withering outpost of the kingdom, and its people hope the new wizard - the mysterious Kylo Ren - will bring them the rains the land needs to heal. Rey is a lonely, clanless girl living in Niima, and she has a secret. One she hopes the wizard will be able to help her with too.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 95
Collections: To Find Your Kiss: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	The Banished Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misszeldasayre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misszeldasayre/gifts).



> For this year's RFFA Valentine's Day exchange. @misszeldasayre asked for: 
> 
> _Fantasy AU: Spinning Silver, Uprooted, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Caraval—magic of any kind. I love it all—sorcerers drawing power from the earth, ancient fae who bestow curses or blessings, or dangerous games run by mysterious figures! Feel free to use any of your favorite fairytales, fantasy worlds, or mythology as inspiration, or generate your own. Bonus points if the story feels cozy despite all of the wild magic weaving it together._
> 
> I've not long since read Uprooted by Naomi Novik, so I was happy to receive this prompt and I hope this story does it justice!

On Rey of Niima’s nineteenth name day, Jakku gains a new wizard.

It’s an unexpected event for the people of Jakku, since the province has been without a resident wizard for over a century. Its inhabitants have long since given up hope that the throne will take notice of their distant, withering area of the kingdom. Yet on this day—not long after dawn, when the blistering sun has dragged its bloated belly over the horizon to scorch the land once again—Bobbajo rides into Niima on his donkey with the news. 

“A banner has risen over the Spike!” he announces when he’s dismounted, and all the townspeople have gathered around to hear the news. “Help has finally come to us!”

He tells the eager crowd that he saw the banner while driving his goats along the Pilgrim Road, and accepts cups of ale and coin from them for bringing them word. The town’s normal morning tasks are abandoned in favour of merriment and speculation, with a great bonfire built in the village square to mark the occasion properly. 

All but Rey, who sits at her wheel in her hut, spinning fleece into yarn; if she does not work, every day, she won’t have anything to trade for food. Even if it makes her hands bleed on some of those days. Nobody will help her.

Although Rey is used to her name day passing without celebration or even acknowledgement, the mood this year could not be more different. Not because it  _ is _ her name day, of course, since the other people of Niima are still ignoring her. But their good moods are so infectious that even Rey, who normally spends her name days alone and under a dark cloud, finally finds herself smiling and joining the gathering with them at the dusk, when the bonfire is lit and the ale flows freely. And yet, nobody wishes her well. In fact, none of them acknowledge her presence—something else she’s perfectly used to.

Still, this does allow her to sit among the crowd and listen to their conversations.

“A hundred and twelve years, but finally the rains will return!” Old Meru tells her husband. “Just you wait.”

“We’ll be able to finally see the steppe in bloom—“ 

“We can grow things,” says Davan Marak, “instead of having to rely on the cattle for everything. And when the grasses return properly, there will be plenty for them to eat. Their milk and meat will be so sweet…”

“He must be a strong wizard if the king has sent him here. Strong indeed to be able to turn back the desert.”

This last comment, from Constable Zuvio to Bobbajo, is the first time Rey’s attention shifts from her casual observation of the group towards the spark of an idea. A wild idea, one far too wild for her to actually do anything with. 

Unkar Plutt would tell her that her head is too full of stories about wizards and magic, and not full enough of reality. But Rey feels she deals with rather enough reality, and her stories are her only respite.

She slips away from the bonfire to return to her little hut on the edge of the village, long before the festivities have died down. It’s not that she doesn’t want to stay, but nobody will share their food or ale with her, so all she has are her own supplies. At least tonight, of all nights, she does not mind that so much, not when she has a little honey cake stashed away for the day. It’s a week old, and dry and brittle by this point, but it’s still the sweetest thing she’s eaten in weeks.

Then, when her belly is as sated as her meagre supplies will allow, she climbs into her hammock. She made it herself from her own spun fibres, which meant it was cheaper than buying a bedroll from Plutt, and it keeps the floor of her hut free for her wheel and stool. She wraps her arms tightly around her little makeshift doll—the last possession she still owns from her childhood—and goes to sleep, dreaming of a white-bearded man who can command the elements with his hands.

* * *

By the time the wizard has been living in the Spike for a month, the excitement in Jakku has faded until it is as worn out as Rey’s petticoat. He has not visited any of the settlements in the province, nor have rains arrived. In place of the eager proclamations about the throne finally rescuing Jakku from its predicament, or how powerful the wizard must be, the chatter around the village has turned sour.

“I suppose he’s so untalented the king had nowhere else to send him,” Rey overhears Roodown muttering to Unkar Plutt. “So of course we were lumbered with him.” 

Rey is in line to trade for more portions, trying to mind her own business. While comments like this aren’t technically treason, she doubts either the king or the wizard would react favorably to them.

“Haven’t you heard?” Plutt grumbles back. “Old Meru got a good look at the banner. He’s a Ren.”

Roodown makes a noise that Rey thinks is a curse—the kind not to be uttered around children, or the nobility, or in any kind of polite company. But she supposes, even if they have noticed her, Rey doesn’t count as any kind of company at all.

“So it’s true, then,” Roodown replies. “He really has just been dumped on us to get him out of the way.”

“I wouldn’t say so. When I heard he was a Ren, I asked around some of my sources. You know I have people in the capital who I trade with.” Everybody knows that. Plutt never stops bragging about his connections, given the power it provides him over everybody else in Jakku. He can get them almost anything—for a price.

Except, of course, rain. Nobody can get them that. Not even, it appears, a wizard.

“Well?” Roodown prompts, when Plutt has let the moment drag on long enough, and there is no more suspense to be had.

“His full name is Kylo Ren, and they claim he’s incredibly powerful. He comes from a good lineage but turned his back on them to seek out a new clan before he’d finished his training. The Rens were happy to claim him—it did them good to have more than just outcasts and the unclaimed among their ranks.”

Rey grips her spool of yarn tightly, a sharp jolt of excitement bursting through her. There are—you don’t need a family? People can get claimed by a clan they weren’t born into? Why has nobody ever told her this?

It only takes a second for her to realise why, and for the excitement to wash away. People don’t tell her things, not on purpose. Everything she’s ever known, she’s had to figure out through eavesdropping—one of her strongest skills—or by asking directly. 

Nobody in Niima wanted to tell her that she could be adopted by another clan, even without family to take her in, because they don’t want to get her hopes up. They don’t want her to think that somebody might claim her, when nobody in Niima has any intention of doing that. They don’t want her to look at them hopefully while they pretend not to see it. Better she not know to begin with.

Rey won’t ask Unkar Plutt any questions about this, because she can never trust the information he gives her. However, a few days later Plutt sends her on an errand to Tuanal, which leads her right to the door of Lor San Tekka.

If Rey spends her days spinning yarn, Lor San likes to spend his on spinning stories. Some true, some not. Half of her stories—if not more—come from Lor San. He likes an audience, but very few of the people who visit him like to be that audience. Yet for Rey, there’s nothing she enjoys more than curling up in his little home, nursing the cup of dandelion tea he offers her, and listening to him ramble about whatever he wants. It is nice to be spoken to directly. If he goes on too long, she at least has the ability to make her excuses and return to Niima.

“I’ve heard that our new wizard is from the clan Ren,” she prompts him. “People don’t seem to like that very much, and I don’t know why.”

Lor San settles back in his wicker chair, eyes gleaming with the opportunity to regale somebody at length with his knowledge. It’s not that he likes Rey, exactly, and sometimes she thinks he forgets who he’s even speaking to. Who is in the audience is irrelevant to him, so long as he has one.

“The Ren? Always an interesting topic for discussion.” He takes a slurp of tea. “The Ren are something of a motley crew. They began as the foundlings and orphans of Coruscant banding together to form a clan of their own, for those who couldn’t find clans willing to claim them through apprenticeships or the like. Some have risen to great heights, but truth be told they can be a little lawless. Even ruthless. The Ren have their own code and people know not to cross them.”

“Does that mean if our wizard willingly joined them that he is a bad person himself? Ruthless and lawless?”

Lor San frowns. “Not if he joined them willingly, child. I have it on good authority that he very much did turn his back on the clan he was born into—the clan who were expected to claim him when he was old enough—and chose the Ren instead. They took him in because of his raw power and the benefits it would afford to them.”

Rey finds herself shivering a little, despite the uncomfortable warmth in Lor San’s home. He keeps a fire burning in the hearth at all times, even though the home’s thick stone walls trap the heat in. 

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Why would anybody want to leave their clan—their family?”

“Power?” Lor San shrugs. “Sometimes older clans can have very strange, elaborate dynamics, and breaking out to go to a newer clan might have been his chance to rise to the very top of one. I’ve heard lots of rumours about this one, all troubling, but gossip goes through many ears before it reaches me out here in Jakku. I can’t determine the truth of it.”

Which, in Rey’s experience, means he’s probably saving up all his little story threads until he’s got a truly juicy yarn to spin.

“So why do you think the king sent Kylo Ren here?” Her voice drops to a whisper at his name. It feels almost forbidden to say his name out loud, like it might summon him directly to them. Rey has a very clear picture of him in her head: tall, with gnarled grey hair and beard, long enough to tuck into his belt. Grey robes, too, and a scowl on his face. “Why would Kylo Ren even agree to come here, if he wants to be head of a clan based in Coruscant?”

Lor San replies first with his dry, crackling laugh. “Even a wizard does not disregard an order from a king, unless he wants to be hunted down by his peers. And I imagine the king sent Kylo Ren here as a preemptive measure, to keep him from gaining all the power he wants. That way Kylo Ren can’t get himself into a position where he can do something truly dangerous—like try to take the throne for himself.”

“You don’t think he’s been sent here to bring us rains?”

Another slurp, as Lor San finishes his tea. “He’d be truly something special if he were capable of such a thing on his own. But the weather is in the hands of the gods, and we probably shouldn’t try to meddle in it, lest we make the situation even worse.”

Rey doesn’t have any other questions—even though she really wants to hear all the rumors about Kylo Ren, but she knows Lor San won’t reveal those until he’s ready. Instead, she lets him ramble on about the history of the neighbouring province of Jedha, and then tell her a myth about the old wizards of Mortis. It’s soothing to listen to him, though she’s also more than happy to take two more cups of tea from him.

Before she leaves, she asks her usual question, the one she always asks when she visits him. Even though his answer has been the same for years—she never gives up hope that one day the answer will be different. That’s why she always asks.

“Have you heard anything from Coruscant?”

Lor San rests his papery hand on top of hers and squints at her with pity in his watery eyes, “I haven’t received any letters for you, Rey, no.”

She attempts a smile in acknowledgment, then sets off back to Niima through the Kelvin Ravine. As the road climbs up and crosses the higher ground, she turns to stare in the direction of the Spike, hoping she’ll be able to see the banner—or perhaps any sign of the wizard. But from this far away, and with the day’s haze lying across the land, all she can see is the Spike’s very tip, as sharp as if somebody had set a dagger into the earth hilt first.

She could take a detour for a better look, to see its obsidian walls jutting up from the glassy surface of the Crackle. She could even, if she were feeling braver, keep going along the Pilgrim Road right up to the Spike itself. She could knock on its great doors and ask for an audience with the wizard. Yet the sun is already ominously low and orange on the horizon, and it’s not wise to be this far away from a village after dark. So she dismisses the wild idea once again and heads home, to her empty hut. 

Later, once she’s settled into her hammock, she presses her doll to her chest and pretends it is warm, that it breathes, that it can hold her back. But the doll is only cloth and stuffing, and does not care about Rey any more than any other being in the world—which is to say, not at all.

* * *

Two more months pass, and the residents of Jakku become incredibly disgruntled by the lack of progress their wizard is making. Despite sending tribute to him as required—fleece and meat, milk, cheese, and ale—he does not seem to do a thing about the relentless sun, or the desert’s slow but inexorable, creeping claim of the land.

“Has nobody told the king that if all the steppe is turned to sand, other provinces will be next?” complains Athgar Heece to Constable Zuvio. Once more, Rey is ignored while they talk to each other at the well, and she patiently waits her turn as she pretends not to care about what they’re saying.

“Perhaps he doesn’t know how bad the situation really is.”

“Or he just doesn’t care,” chimes in Sarco Plank, “because he knows by that point he’ll be made of dust as much as the ground is. By then it will long be somebody else’s problem.”

“The wizard might still be around,” says Athgar. “Who knows how long he’ll live?”

Zuvio nods sagely. “I heard the previous wizard lived for two hundred years. He’s the one who claimed the Spike as his dwelling after the war.”

“They don’t like living among us normal folk,” says Sarco. “But I suppose it’s the best place for them. All the way out there, instead of risking us with their strange experiments.”

“Just so,” agrees Athgar.

“Perhaps somebody should go speak to him,” suggests Zuvio.

“The king?” Athgar knocks his bucket against the well wall in surprise. “I don’t think he’d give any of us an audience.”

“Stars, no. I mean the wizard. Somebody ought to go speak to Kylo Ren and see what he’s doing about the rains.”

“I don’t think anybody would dare go,” says Sarco.

“I’ll go.”

It’s only when the face of everybody else at the well turns towards her, that Rey realises she’s the one who spoke. She’s just volunteered herself to go see the wizard and make absurd demands on him, on behalf of all these villagers who probably won’t even be grateful towards him if he does what they want him to. They definitely won’t be grateful to her.

Zuvio’s forehead wrinkles like he’s trying to place where he knows Rey from, even though she’s well aware he knows who she is. He’s reprimanded her often enough for taking more than her share of water from the well, or not covering her hair on a Starsday.

“You’ll go?” he asks.

Rey almost shakes her head and dashes out of the line, away from all these curious stares fixed on her. So many different pairs of eyes, but all thinking the same thing, once they’ve had chance to work it out in their thoughts. Clanless girl. Unclaimed. Unwanted. Likely followed by another thought: maybe that’s for the best. If anything bad were to happen to her on the journey, she’s less likely to be missed than most people in Niima. Only Plutt would be less missed by the villagers, for the way he scalps them all on trades.

The idea of making the journey is terrifying. Not only for the wild Pilgrim’s Road itself, and the barren landscape of the Crackle, but because if she survives that unmaimed, there’s a wizard at the end of it. A wizard who is unlikely to be very welcoming of her, and may even be actively hostile.

But if she goes…if she goes, maybe there is something she can ask of him. Something other than the rains. Something he might actually be able to help her with.

“Yes. Send me,” she confirms.

And so they do.

* * *

Despite Rey being sent on such an important journey, the people of Niima are unwilling to provide her with much to help her on her way. Though the journey is not an especially long one—not compared to the road to Coruscant, which takes weeks to travel, or even just crossing the mountains into Jedha—she needs plenty of water and other supplies. It would be quicker with a donkey or oxen for her to ride, but nobody’s willing to risk lending her a good beast of burden when Rey’s feet will do adequately.

It means, when she sets out, she does so with a light burden. Water. Stale bread. A ball of yarn, for want of anything else. She’s out of Niima on the Pilgrim’s Road before dawn has truly taken hold of the sky.

She’s wrapped head to toe against the sun and the sand, even her face buried beneath rolls of gauze, and old goggles protect her eyes. Her staff, pieced together from offcuts the blacksmith discarded, hangs at her back, her only weapon if she faces any beasts or bandits. These things are what she usually wears or carries with her when she goes out into the desert, collecting the fleece of goats from thornbushes so that she has something to spin.

At first, she keeps the staff tight in her fist. She’s never ventured this far on the Pilgrim’s Road before, but she’s heard the many stories of what might happen out here. She’s seen the injured come stumbling into Niima—and she’s heard tell of the people who never return at all.

But she knows, somehow, a few hours later as she skirts around the edge of Kelvin Ravine, that she will see nobody and nothing on her journey. There’s no sound but the wind howling through the bottom of the gulley, and not another soul for miles.

When she stands on the high ground with the path swooping down into the valley, and the expanse of the Crackle glitters below her, she knows that the wizard’s presence has had one positive effect on this part of Jakku. Rey is completely alone, since the beings who’d normally prey on travellers have retreated far from where they might draw the wizard’s attention.

And it’s easy to assume when you’re out here that you do have the wizard’s attention. The Spike is aptly named, a sharply-pointed black tower which glistens where the sun catches it and juts far above the surrounding landscape. It’s hard to tell if there are any windows in its smooth surface, but if there are, the inhabitant would have sweeping views across the entire desert.

At the very top of the tower, a black banner floats on the scant breeze, and in the centre there’s a circular emblem in red, with spokes like a wheel crossing it. The banner of the Ren.

After Rey descends down into the plain, she is very careful to find the true path through the Crackle. She’s heard stories about the fools who try to cross it without following the road, and the injuries that befall them. During the war, a wizard had managed to melt all the sand and turn this area into a field of glass. It burns hot when the sun beams on it, even melting again in places, and people have lost limbs—or worse—navigating its surface. Some were scorched and others sank into it, becoming trapped like flies in amber. 

The path has been carved out of this thick layer of glass—long, hard labor with pickaxes—to reveal a smooth road leading to the Spike, wide enough to drive a carriage down. Rey presumes it’s been recently repaired for the wizard’s benefit.

As she walks, the glass on either side of her rises in a jagged wall above her head, and the heat from it is like walking through the blacksmith’s forge. She knows if she were to touch the walls, she’d blister instantly. Of course, Rey isn’t even slightly tempted to do something so foolish, so she keeps her gaze straight ahead, down the road that points to the Spike’s doors like an arrow.

She’s weary, and thirsty, and not a little dusty despite the wraps, by the time she makes it to those doors. They loom above her, easily twice her height, and she’s surprised to find they’re made out of wood. Up close the Spike appears less like glass and more like an extremely smooth black stone that merely shines like it’s been polished to a glossy sheen. There are indeed windows in the higher levels, which makes her wonder how hot the building must be inside.

More than that, the Spike is bigger than she’d thought from when she’d seen it on the high ground. It’s fatter at the base, as wide as the courtyard of Niima’s inn, narrowing to that point at the top very gradually.

Rey props her goggles on top of her head then unwraps the lower part of her face, taking the opportunity to gulp down another water skin. She must be a pink-faced, sweaty mess—hardly a fitting ambassador for her people—but they should have sent her on a donkey if they wanted her to look presentable.

Then she lifts the heavy knocker and thumps it against the wood.

She waits. It’s not as though she counts the seconds, but she’s very aware of every bead of sweat rolling down her back, or into her eyes. When nothing happens after several beads have fallen, she knocks again. Evidently despite all those windows, nobody is watching the desert after all.

Finally, she hears movement inside, although she’s not sure what it could be. Footsteps, perhaps. Footsteps that somehow sound annoyed, if that’s possible. Then the door is flung aside to reveal—

Oh.

He’s tall. That’s her first impression; taller than any man in Niima, perhaps in all of Jakku. And broad too, his shoulders seeming to take up a good portion of the doorway. Blacksmith’s shoulders, she thinks, although he’s clearly nothing of the sort—he must be the wizard’s manservant. When her gaze reaches his face, she registers glossy dark curls, pale skin, and large, angular features, currently caught up in an imperious scowl. The expression only emphasises his full, pouty lips, and one part of Rey’s mind is acutely aware that he’s the most attractive man she’s ever seen, despite all his angles. The rest of her mind has gone into meltdown, completely incapable of anything except a dull roar of white noise.

The scowl is probably because he’s all dressed in black—long robes, boots, and breeches. Ridiculous things to wear in the desert, but perhaps nobody told him how hot it could get. Or maybe it’s a uniform the wizard makes him wear. 

Her flustered state means he speaks before she can introduce herself. He looks down his haughty nose, opens those sumptuous lips, and snaps at her. “I’ve told you all before!” His voice is deep, his tone withering. “Push your tributes through the hatch. I have work to be doing, and I don’t want to be disturbed.” 

He kicks at the bottom of the door, where Rey can see there is indeed a panel for the delivery of goods. The movement attracts her attention—not just to his finely polished boots and enormous feet, but also to the interior of the tower. Beyond the man, all that’s visible is an antechamber built from polished marble.

Her brain finally whirs back into action.

“I’m not here to bring anything, sir,” she says, aware of how hoarse her voice sounds after the morning in the desert. 

He glances down at her, his dark eyes sweeping her head to foot, and Rey squirms under his scrutiny. She’s glad that most of her face remains covered by the gauze, so he can’t see all of her discomfort baldly displayed. Whatever he sees, he finds her lacking. “Evidently. Then why are you here?”

“I’m here to see the wizard.”

He squints at her. “I’m the wizard.”

“You are?” She can’t keep the surprise out of her voice, and his scowl only deepens when he registers it. 

“Yes. I am.”

“Sorry,” she mutters. “You’re younger than I expected.” 

He’s entirely different to what she expected, except for perhaps the height and the scowl. She’s left feeling wrongfooted, and then when it occurs she might have offended him, panic floods through her. Yet she has no idea what to say or how to fix the situation.

He grunts. “Am I?”

“I thought wizards were supposed to be…old.” That, she supposes, was  _ not _ how to repair the damage she’s already done, but at least his face barely changes expression this time. Maybe because he is incapable of registering any more displeasure with her than he already is.

“If I’m lucky, one day I will be.”

The conversation lapses, largely because Rey is too afraid of what else she might say. The wizard—Kylo Ren, as she’s decided to think of him as, since that  _ is _ his name—remains blocking the doorway. She must do something; must ensure he listens to her request.

“Can I come in, sir?” she asks shyly. She’s sure she’s supposed to wait to be invited, but the sun is burning her back even through her clothing, and he’s showing no indication that he’s at all interested in why she’s here.

“Why?” As expected, he sounds annoyed at the request.

“So I can tell you why I came here.”

“You can tell me right here. And then leave.”

“But it will take a while. Please.” She waves beyond him, at the antechamber. “Only so that I can get out of the sun, and drink some water. If you listen to me, then I’ll go.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then other villagers will come here until you listen to one of them.”

His jaw clenches and his lips purse. He steps aside grudgingly. “Don’t touch anything.”

There is very little for Rey to touch, other than the creamy marble. Once inside, she understands why he wears the robes; it’s blissfully cool. As soon as the door is closed, and the sun is shut out, so is the worst of the heat.

The antechamber is the size of Rey’s entire hut—which means the Kylo Ren could probably touch both walls if he stretched out his arms, although they  _ are _ very long arms. In the confined space, she’s even more aware of his size, and his intimidating presence, which beats at her like the midday heat. The way he’s frowning, that heavy brow drawn down over hooded eyes, she’s not sure he’s capable of smiling. 

“Actually I do have one thing to give you,” she tells him, reaching into her bag. The skein of yarn is small, but it’s good work. Worth several portions from Plutt by Rey’s reckoning.

She holds out the skein, and his frown shifts tenor, from annoyance to angry bewilderment. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks, still scornful.

“Er—take it? From me?” And then she realises that’s not what he was asking at all—he meant what is he supposed to do with it once she’s given it to him—but he’s already reached out to take it from her anyway. As he does, his long, ivory fingers come within a thread’s width of her own hand.

Rey feels a flare of heat, sharp and exact, pass between them. She shrieks, and lets go of the fleece, clutching her hand back to her chest.

The wizard’s expression flickers, changing into something like confusion. “I’m not looking for an apprentice,” he says, but even as he does he sounds…doubtful. He’s staring at her intently, examining her, and she flinches under his interest.

“I—why would you say that?”

“Because of this.” He squeezes the skein in his enormous fist. “You were hoping this would impress me, were you not?”

Evidently all her wits have escaped her today, although she’s starting to think he’s lost his too. Why would she come to be apprenticed to a wizard for spinning? Nevermind that she’s been doing it her entire life and she does damn fine work. But she bites her tongue and forces herself to be polite, even if he is infuriatingly rude in return.

“Can I have some water, please? And then I’ll tell you what brought me here.”

He’s still intrigued by something, and she’s not sure what, but Kylo Ren nods. He ushers her through another door, which leads to a short corridor, and then he seems to gather enough manners from somewhere to stand aside and let her pass through the door at the end of it.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting, but it isn’t to step outside again. Yet she does, right into a patch of sunlight, only instead of the searing desert heat it’s pleasant. Warm, but not stifling. She glances around, confused, and finds herself in a courtyard. Somehow the centre of the tower has been fashioned into one, and when she glances upwards, she can see that the very top of the tower is not, in fact, closed. There are points all the way down which let the light stream through, sunbeams bouncing off the stone so that this area is well-lit, and the air can circulate. 

There’s enough light to grow plants; there are troughs and containers filling the space, brimming with greenery Rey has never seen. And then at the centre of it all, there is a shallow pool, turquoise and vivid, fed by silver spouts which little streams of water cascade from. 

It’s much bigger than the well in Niima. She’s never seen so much water in her life. Nor this much greenery.

“How—?”

Kylo Ren raises an eyebrow. “All that wizards are capable of, and you think we’re not able to build wells?”

“I didn’t know there was this much water out here in the desert.”

“There’s plenty of water trapped under the Crackle, deep in underground streams. My predecessors were able to create this oasis from it.”

“May I?” She’s already asked for water, but feels the need to check again. Just in case he’s changed his mind—because it’s hard to believe that when there is so much water available, that she’s able to take any of it without working for it, or trading something.

Yet he nods, casually gesturing to the pool, as if water isn’t the most precious commodity in the world. “As much as you need.”

She takes out her skin first, kneeling beside one of the spouts to fill it up. While it’s propped in place she takes the opportunity to unwind the gauze still covering most of her face, slipping off her goggles to carefully stash them in her bag. Then, when the skin is full, she scoops up handfuls of the water—and it’s cold, wonderfully cold—to splash onto her face, trying to wash away the worst of the salty sweat which clings to her. To try and look a little more presentable, if that’s at all possible.

She drains the skin and allows it to refill, admiring the rest of the courtyard. She recognises some of the plants, but not in ways she’s ever seen them up close—fresh versions of herbs she’s only ever come across in dried form, in Niima’s marketplace. She’s seen drawings of some of the things too, in old books at Lor San’s hut. A couple of the larger pots contain shrubs and small trees; the one closest to Rey is laden with small yellow fruit. Other pots hang from brackets, their contents spilling over the sides like red jewels—berries and plump tomatoes clinging to green stems. She can practically taste them, can feel how they’d burst if she sank her teeth into them, even though she can’t ever remember eating anything so fresh.

The walls surrounding the courtyard are either made of glass or that polished stone, because as she takes it all in she finds herself reflected back; a small, wide-eyed young woman. She’s draped in white, some trick of the reflection bleaching all the colour from her dirty clothes, and she’s relieved to see that she looks fresh-faced, even dewy, now she’s washed herself.

Kylo Ren’s reflected too. He’s still waiting on the threshold, watching her, and all that black clothing makes him look more like a shadow than a man. It’s hard to believe he’s responsible for all this life—though she feels a flare of anger when she realises all this food is for him, and him alone. She’s prepared to turn around and confront him—to ask him how  _ dare _ he keep all this water, and with it, the life it brings, to himself—until she sees his expression. He’s staring at her, or one of her reflections. That obstinate contempt has melted away, replaced with…

She’s not sure. If she didn’t know better, she’d say awe. He’s looking at her rather like she looked at all the water, and he looks younger when he does so. Softer. It's even more striking than her first glimpse of him, and that’s an astonishing accomplishment. It’s hard to hold onto her anger when she suddenly feels irrationally nervous at being looked at in this way.

He doesn’t know she’s noticed, not until she deliberately turns her head to meet his gaze within the glass. Then he breaks the stare, and by the time she’s turned around, that haughty mask is back in place. She tries to follow suit, covering her nerves with a stern expression.

But Rey isn’t fooled by his mask. She doesn't know why he was staring at her, or why his face had looked like that, but she’s seen beneath the armour now. He’s a wizard yes, yet he’s also a man. Just a man. It makes him far less intimidating, which makes the rest of this so much easier.

She gets up from her crouch, tucking the precious water away. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she says, smiling, trying to remember old lessons about manners from people whose faces have long faded in her memory.

The way his eyes flicker and his mouth trembles at her smile doesn’t escape her. He swallows, which is very visible in his prominent throat.

“Come through to the study,” he commands. “We should talk in there.”

He steps out into the courtyard himself, but only to push one of the glass panels lining it aside. It slides open, leaving a large gap, and Rey follows him through the opening it creates. 

The study is right next to the courtyard, and takes up this entire side of the tower. The wall abutting the courtyard is built completely from glass, and there’s an enormous wooden desk which is arranged so that whoever sits at it stares out at the pool, bathed in sunlight while enjoying the cool interior of the building. Apart from that one wall, the rest of the room is lined in the same pearly marble as the antechamber, and Rey can only wonder at how all of this was carted across the desert.

Kylo doesn’t sit at the desk, which is covered in leather-bound books and scrolls of parchment, and instead leads Rey to a set of armchairs which are clustered around an unlit fireplace. He takes one chair, although it’s clear when he sits down that he doesn’t usually use these seats: the one he’s chosen is almost comically small compared to him. She wonders if she’s the first guest he’s received.

“Take a seat.” Another command, and this time she hesitates. However clean her face may be, she’s sure her clothes will leave dirt and sand all over the upholstery, but he gives an impatient gesture and Rey sets herself down in the nearest chair. Facing him. “Your name?”

“My name is Rey, sir.”

“And the rest of it?”

“Rey of Niima.”

“Of Niima is not a clan name.”

“I’m very aware of that.” 

“You don’t have a clan name?” This time the question is asked with more interest than mere expected pleasantries. She’s not sure what the interest is—curiosity, or disgust, or suspicion. “Nobody has claimed you?”

“That’s why I’m here,” she tells him. “I’m cursed.”

His eyebrows shoot up, his mouth parting in surprise. “Cursed?”

“Well—I’m also here about the rains. That’s why I was chosen to come, but I want to ask you for help with my curse too.”

He’s staring at her intently again and she thinks that maybe it’s not a frown after all. Maybe that’s just how his face is—that when he’s concentrating, it falls into a scowl, and he can’t help that his bone structure makes him appear so intimidating.

“What do the villagers want?” he asks first. 

“Rains,” she repeats. “We haven’t had any for over a hundred years, and the steppe is turning into desert. But if you can send rains—regular ones—it will stop that from happening.”

“Impossible,” he dismisses. “Is that all they want?”

But Rey won’t let it go that easily. “With respect, sir, it’s incredibly important. Without water, Jakku will wither and die. It will become a wasteland.”

“Yes, yes, I understand that. But like I said—impossible.”

“How is it impossible? Look at all that water out there—and all for you!” She points to the courtyard.

He shrugs. “That’s pumped up from the ground. It’s clever engineering. Rain is another matter altogether.”

“So are you not that powerful?”

“I am very powerful,” he says indignantly. “I’m the most powerful wizard alive!”

That should impress Rey, but instead it only infuriates her more. “Then why can’t you fix the steppe?”

“Because I am only  _ one _ wizard.” 

“You won’t help, then?” 

“No, I  _ can’t _ help.”

She slumps back into the chair. All that hope, squandered. Sooner or later, Niima will be swallowed up by encroaching sand dunes. Since she has nowhere else to go, Rey will probably still be in Jakku when it happens. “Why did the king even send you here, if it’s not to help us?”

“The king didn’t send me.” He shifts in his seat, glancing away from her for the first time since they sat down. Rey realises that he stares intensely at something—or somebody—when he wants to understand them, but he can’t endure it when that same observation is turned onto him. In which case, she’ll observe him just as intently. “I chose to come here.”

And for all that Jakku is her home—the only place Rey has ever known—this baffles her. “Why?”

It ought to be a question too far. She’s failed to show Kylo Ren sufficient deference almost since she arrived, and he’s tolerated it far more gracefully than might have been expected by his reputation. Or by how he first answered the door. He owes her no answer—he has every right to banish her back out into the Crackle with nothing to show for her journey. But when he makes no move to do so—when he sucks his lower lip into his mouth and stares miserably at the empty hearth—Rey realises she’s probably the first person he’s spoken to since he arrived. He’s eager for the company, no matter what he might say.

“Because I left my clan,” he tells her, “and this was the farthest place from them.”

“I don’t understand. Everybody knows you already left your clan, and joined another. That’s why the Ren banner flies above the Spike.”

He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I didn’t put that banner there, it was done by the servants sent to prepare this place for me. I’m not a Ren anymore—I’m going to create my own clan.”

Rey can only blink at him, dumbfounded. “You just left your clan—again?”

“Yes.”

“You can do that? Just keep leaving clans if you don’t like them?”

“Obviously, yes.”

“And create your own?”

“All clans were created by somebody,” he tells her, clearly frustrated by her questioning. “But I’m not setting up a clan—I’m going to be one all on my own.”

“You—you want to be alone?” Rey has never heard anything so strange. In all the years she’s spent yearning for company, she’s never wanted what he’s seeking. And when she stares at him—really stares at him, at the way he’s slumped in the chair, hands pinned between his thighs—she thinks he doesn’t want that at all. Not really. 

But he nods obstinately. “That’s the name of my new clan. Solo. To symbolise who I truly am.”

Rey sucks in a breath. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. I know what it’s like to be alone, and it’s horrible.”

“Is it more horrible than being surrounded by people who don’t really want you around?” he asks softly. “You know what that’s like, don’t you.” It’s not a question—it’s an observation. Suddenly his awkwardness has flipped, her scrutiny of him reversed, and she doesn’t like being pinned under his gaze like this. Not when it feels like he’s casually torn off the upper layers of her being and stared right down into her soul.

She springs up, turning her back to him. “Thank you for your time. I should go.” And she should—if she leaves now, she has a chance of getting back to Niima before the darkest part of the night. But mostly, she wants away from his understanding gaze. He can’t fix anything, so the walk home will give her plenty of time to cry, and the gauze will soak up her tears.

He follows her out into the courtyard. “You haven’t told me about your curse yet.”

She can see him behind her, reflected over and over again in the mirrored walls. He does want the company, whatever he may say—he doesn’t want her to leave yet. So she spins to face him.

“And? What does it matter? So you can demonstrate to me once again how you can’t do anything?”

He glowers at her, and it’s a heavy thing, sure to knock most people off their feet. “You haven’t given me anything interesting to fix yet.”

Rey is sure he’s used to people quailing under such a dour expression, but she feels as though she has the measure of him by now. He’s trying to goad her into talking to him, into keeping her here for a little while longer. And she should leave—she knows she should—but she also desperately wants to stay too. To bathe in somebody giving her their undivided attention for a little while longer, before she must face the emptiness of the desert, and then the emptiness of her life. 

So Rey decides to do what she really came here for. She takes a deep breath, and tells Kylo Ren about her curse.

“Fine. When I was young—I’m not sure how young, but I think before my sixth name day—a wizard came to visit Niima.”

Though many of her memories have faded over the years, she can still remember exactly how that day felt. The surprise rippling through Niima that this grizzled old man, claiming food and boarding at the inn, was a wizard. The bubble of hope which hung over everyone at the news. She’s not sure she could put that feeling into words for Kylo.

“We were all told how important he was and that we shouldn’t do anything to insult or upset him.” Kylo cocks an eyebrow at that, which is fair. She’s done plenty to annoy him today. “Apparently he was thinking of coming to settle in Jakku, and everybody was excited that he might be the one to bring us rains.”

“Evidently not.”

“No. I—I wasn’t watching where I was going. I walked into him—into his knees, really, and he fell over. He said a lot of horrible things about what a wretched child I was, and he left. The villagers all blamed me, and turned on my parents. That was when I realised he’d cursed me for what I’d done.”

Kylo’s face is inscrutable. “Cursed you how?”

“My parents couldn’t find work, so they left to go to Coruscant and put me into the care of a man called Unkar Plutt. They promised that when they got settled in Coruscant that they’d send for me. Only…” She stops talking, trying to gather the strength for her words. “They wrote a few letters, and then stopped contacting me completely.”

Is that pity she sees? “They never sent for you, then.”

“No. At first I feared the worst, but they wrote to friends in Jakku with details of their new lives. They established themselves—they had a good house, plenty of food. They even had more children. It seems they just forgot about me. Or stopped caring.”

The way Kylo’s mouth shifts, trembling, is definitely a marker of pity. “You believe that’s a symptom of your curse?”

She tries to smile, and in the reflected versions of her, it’s a wan, unstable thing. “I made friends with a boy called Finn, once. He was my only friend. He moved to the village and liked me, but he was only in Niima for a week before he was summoned away for work in Kef Bir. And then I rescued a dog—this silly thing that had wandered out into the desert. I called him BB-8, and he loved me as much as I loved him. But Unkar Plutt sold him to a passing soldier called Poe Dameron. That’s the curse you see: to be alone. Anyone or anything which might want to spend time with me is taken away, or leaves of their own accord.”

“I see.” Kylo’s heavy frown is definitely not turned on her, this time—it appears more like he’s deep in thought. “There’s only one problem with this apparent curse.”

Rey would like to point out that it’s a very large problem, from her point of view, or she wouldn’t have volunteered to drag herself all the way out here to ask for help with it. But she keeps that to herself. “And what is that?”

“No wizard has been to Jakku in over a century.”

“I just told you—”

“Whoever that old man was, he wasn’t a wizard. He was just pretending to be one.”

Annoyance flares in Rey’s chest, and she welcomes it. It’s easier to feel than self-pity. “We saw his paperwork! He performed tricks for people.”

Kylo scoffs. “Tricks. Wizards don’t perform tricks. Whoever that old man was, he was a fraud. Very detailed records of these things are kept, and I know no wizard has been to Jakku since my predecessor passed.”

“So I’m—not cursed?” Rey shakes her head, a strange kind of panic fluttering inside her. “That doesn’t make sense. My parents loved me until they left—what they did makes no sense.”

His lip curls. “Sometimes families can disappoint you in ways you don’t expect as a child.”

He’s not talking about her family—there’s too much disdain there. He’s talking about whatever made him walk away from his original clan.

“That’s easy for you to say,” she fires back. “You’ve been claimed twice over!”

“And I walked away both times.” His voice is dangerously soft. “People will disappoint you.”

“You believe cutting them all out is easier? To hide yourself away here and never deal with them at all?”

One corner of his mouth rises in a sardonic smile. “You still found me, didn’t you?”

“Don’t worry,” she tells him, turning her back once more. “I said I was leaving. If I’m not cursed then you can’t help me.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t cursed.” Somehow he’s in front of her, moving fluidly to block her as she tries to stride back into the antechamber. “I said the old man wasn’t a wizard.”

Rey sighs, remembering too late all of Lor San Tekka’s stories about the cost of gaining help from wizards. She’s asked him for water without checking what the price is—and apparently it’s listening to him talk in riddles. 

“If he wasn’t a wizard, I can’t be cursed.”

“You can.” He cocks his head, his eyes narrowing. “If it wasn’t the old man who cursed you.”

Rey has absolutely had enough. She’d rather be out in the desert with an empty water skin and bandits stalking her than stand here another minute with him talking to her in that low, intimate voice which creeps across her skin like a caress. His stare has become an examination again, burrowing inside her and leaving the core of her flayed open to his inspection. 

“Aren’t you going to ask who cursed you?” he asks, that pink, sullen mouth quivering as he doesn’t blink, not once.

“No. I don’t care how it happened—I just want to fix it.”

“But you can’t. Not until you admit to yourself what really happened.”

Somewhere along the way, they’ve drifted closer together. He still blocks the threshold, and now she’s right in front of him. She has to lift her chin to meet his eyes, and she doesn’t want to do that, but finds herself doing it anyway. Returning that intense, burning gaze. With the sunlight reflecting from them, she can see they aren’t as dark as they’d first appeared, but the rich, golden brown of ale. 

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

He retrieves the skein of fleece from his pocket. She’d not seen what he did with it after she gave it to him, so she’s surprised when it appears once more in his palm, grey and soft and frustratingly small in his hand. “You spin these, don’t you?” She nods somberly. “Do you ever find yourself making more yarn than you should be able to produce from the amount of fleece you started with?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.” What does this have to do with anything? Rey’s always been the envy of Niima for the amount of work she can make from small quantities of fleece, but it was the same way for her mother, who taught her. “It’s a skill. One I’m good at.”

“It’s magic,” he tells her. “I feel it in the very fibres. You rely on what you make to survive, so you create enough to ensure that you will.”

Rey’s shaking her head. “IMagic? We were discussing a curse, not—“

“They’re one and the same, Rey.” And his gaze has softened like his voice, his head lowered to look down at her when she won’t return his stare anymore. It changes his face, smoothes out all the angles and makes him look younger, more boyish. His eyes large and imploring. “You have magic, and you cursed yourself.”

“No!”

“Yes. You blamed yourself for what happened with the old man, and when your parents went away, you panicked. You feared they’d never return and forget all about you—so they did. Then somebody else came into your life, and your fear pushed them away. Over and over.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t know that.” But even as she denies it, Rey knows the truth. 

“I can. I do. What you do soaks into what you create.” His fingers curl around the fleece again. “You have powerful magic inside you, but it’s untrained, and that means it manifests in unexpected ways.”

That bubble of panic swells even larger, and she’s not sure she can breathe around it. She tries to find a way out of the conversation, and away from this tower. 

“Well, as you’ve already told me, you aren’t taking on an apprentice right now. You came out here to shut yourself up and be alone, so I’ll leave you to it.”

He looks…disappointed. And he still doesn’t get out of her way.

“You don’t want to know how to break the curse?” he asks. “That is what you came here for.”

“If I know that I’m doing it to myself, isn’t that enough?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not for something you’ve allowed to take root so deeply in yourself.”

“Then what?”

He frowns once more, but she knows enough by now to realise it’s not directed at her. He’s thinking, his lower lip sucked into his mouth again. It’s a quirk that already feels familiar to her and she doesn’t like that it does. It feels...it feels strangely intimate, to think she knows somebody. And hasn’t she had this feeling before, known a person’s smile, their quirks, got attached to them, right before they left her?

Kylo is the first person to see past the curse and understand what she’s done to herself. While she might not want to believe what he’s told her, she does, because it’s the truth. That’s the kind of person he is—one who deals in bald, simple truths, even if they’re uncomfortable. She likes that, and she likes the way his mouth moves, and his almost-permanent scowl. But what does that matter, if he can’t find an answer for her, and sends her on her way still cursed? Or if he does find an answer, and tosses her out into the desert once she has it? Because she wants to stay here, and to keep looking at him, but that’s not going to happen. He’s made his position about his clan clear, and she needs to get away before it hurts too much.

Perhaps he will excuse himself in a moment to consult some of his books, and she can slip out into the Crackle before he finds the answer.

“You need to take a chance on somebody,” he says instead. Once more, it feels like he’s staring right down into the core of her, plucking the answer to her curse from wherever it’s hidden inside her soul. “Reach out to them—touch them. Kiss them. Open your heart to them and let the curse shatter.”

She’s stuck on those words.  _ Kiss them. Kiss them. Kiss them. _

So she does.

They’re already so close that it’s a simple matter of standing on tiptoes and pressing her mouth to his. She’s never done this before—of course—but she’s seen it done, and there’s a sense of rightness at the connection. His lips, plump and pliant, yield beneath hers, and she feels his startled puff of breath against hers. 

When he doesn’t move, she pulls back to find wide, startled eyes riveted on her. He swipes his tongue across his lips, wetting them, but it’s a nervous gesture and Rey instinctively steps back, opening the distance between them.

“I didn’t necessarily mean me,” he tells her, and it’s a little breathless.

Her cheeks are burning worse than they ever have under the desert sun. She nods, trying to push all her emotions down, to keep them contained within her skin even though they feel so big she’s not sure they’d even fit within  _ his _ skin. 

“I misunderstood,” she tries to say coolly, though she’s sure she misses the mark. She doesn’t feel cool. She feels trapped within her own curse again, unwanted even by this man who’s shut himself away in the desert. Yet he is the only one to see her completely.

“No, Rey, I—“

He doesn’t speak again. Instead, he kisses her back.

It’s different being kissed. To be the one caught by surprise. She’s not on tiptoes this time, so her face is tipped back, and he has all the leverage, helped by the way one hand comes to curl around her neck, gently holding her in place. His mouth is still soft, but it’s more demanding, and this time when she’s the one to gasp, he takes advantage. Showing her there is more to a kiss than pressing lips to lips. His tongue grazes along hers, and when she whimpers, his other arm wraps around her waist, tugging her into his body. 

Something blossoms between them in the kiss. More than desire, a spark which opens a door within Rey’s minds’ eye. Behind it, she finds a glimpse of Jakku, as if from far away. Perhaps at the top of Kelvin Ravine. In the distance there’s the Spike in the Crackle, but all around them the desert has been swallowed by luscious, thriving steppe. Animals graze around them. She and Kylo stand hand in hand, admiring the land. Rain clouds loom on the horizon, full of promise.

This is what they’re capable of. Together.

When they break away this time, there is colour in Kylo’s cheeks too. All of his scorn, his arrogance, has fallen away, and instead he’s enraptured. She’s not sure how she’s managed that, but she’s quite sure the curse has been broken now.

“About that apprenticeship—“ he says, his voice hoarse, his gaze returning to her mouth.

“I thought you wanted to be alone?” she asks, teasing. “In your clan of one.”

The hand still on her waist twitches, tightening like he’s unwilling to relinquish his grip. “The clan can be expanded. Solo can just be a name—not its mission.”

This, here, is the proof that the kiss worked. It’s barely been a minute and she’s already been invited to join a clan. Rey has no intention of rushing into rush into it—she’s not keen on the idea of spending her life out here with only him for company. But she’s not going to write the invitation off entirely, either. “I think we can come up with a better clan name,” she says, enjoying the sight of this previously imperious man so uncomfortable, so needy. “Kylo Solo is a little clunky, don’t you think?”

“It’s Ben,” he mutters. “Ben Solo. I took my father’s name since I didn’t want to be a Skywalker.”

“Well then, Ben Solo. Since you’ve helped me with one problem, I’m willing to stay and become your apprentice.”

She’s about to set out some terms—behaviour she won’t expect from him, reasons why they might each decide the situation isn’t working and go their separate ways. But he does something even more astonishing than kissing her.

He smiles, his face splitting open in boisterous joy.

Rey does the only thing she can do in response. She kisses him again.


End file.
